What Does it Mean to Be Helpful? with Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler

what does it mean to be
helpful
twitter: @scottabel @contentwrangler #idw2018
? Scott Abel,The Content Wrangler
Information Development World 
November 27, 2018 Menlo Park, CA

november
2017 ziplining

Scott Abel,The Content Wrangler
presentation
150th
november
2017san jose, ca

SCOTT@THECONTENTWRANGLER.COM @SCOTTABEL THECONTENTWRANGLER.COM
WITH SCOTT ABEL, 
THE CONTENT WRANGLER
THE CASE FOR
AGENTIVE
CONTENTFROM CHATBOTS THAT HELP
TO AGENTS THAT DO
november
2017san jose, ca

I HOPE TO 
CONVINCE YOU THAT
AND FOCUS ON
CREATING AGENTIVE
CONTENT SOLUTIONS
THAT WORK ON BEHALF
OF OUR CUSTOMERS
WE MUST PRODUCE
MACHINE-READY CONTENT

WE’RE STUCK
IN THE
ASSISTIVE

WE’RE
HEADING FOR
AN AGENTIVE

WE’RE STUCK
IN THE
ASSISTIVE
WE CREATE  
CONTENT
THAT HELPS 
CUSTOMERS 
COMPLETE TASKS
BUT WE RELY ON THE
CUSTOMER 
TO DO THE TASK

ASSISTIVE
DOCUMENTATIONEXAMPLE
PUTS THE ONUS ON THE 
CUSTOMER TO GET VALUE  
FROM THE PRODUCT
HP FORCES ITS CUSTOMERS TO DO THINGS THEY DON’T WANT — OR NEED — TO DO

WE’RE
HEADING FOR
AN AGENTIVE
ACT ON
BEHALF OF
USERS
WE NEED TO DEVELOP 
CONTENT SOLUTIONS THAT

WE HAVE BEEN CREATING THE SAME
OLD TYPE OF LESS-THAN-SPECTACULAR
CONTENT FOR DECADES
THIS IS NOT ABOUT HP
OR LASER PRINTERS
IT'S TIME FOR CHANGE!

WE NEED TO
RETHINK WHAT
IT MEANS TO
SERVEOUR AUDIENCE

HELPFUL
I THOUGHT I WAS BEING
presented the audience
with facts, stats, quotes,
and examples

RESPOND
BUT THE AUDIENCE DID NOT
AS I ANTICIPATED
? ?
?

didn’t they “get it”?
how did they not have the ‘aha” moment I envisioned?

perhaps it was the
about which I was unaware at the time
brain tumor

as it turns out it was
probably not the brain tumor
the curse of
knowledge

a cognitive bias — one party assumes
that the others have the background
knowledge needed to understand
the curse of
knowledge
what is the curse of knowledge?

our level of knowledge interferes 
with our ability to see the world
from another’s perspective
sme’s
management
legal
existing customers

when we know a subject very well,
we have a difﬁcult time knowing
what it’s like not to know it
the curse of
knowledge

the curse of
knowledge
let’s test this out with two volunteers
volunteer 1
tapper
volunteer 2
Listener
tapper taps out well-known song on table; listener guesses the song

the curse of
knowledge
what is basic knowledge to one person 
might be completely foreign to another
big
lesson

you know helpful when
you experience it … just
as you know unhelpful
when you experience it …
Associate Justice (1958—1981) 
United States Supreme Court
Justice Potter Stewart

when you see it
you know helpful

organizations are
working to make
their content  
easy to understand

Lookfor ways to make your content
the 5 Cs
helpfulcontent is
empathetic
valuable
useful
clear
concise
consistent
considerate
convenient

questions to ask about your content
Scott Abel,The Content Wrangler
how will the content you plan
to create meet the needs of
your audiences?
how will you 
measure success?
which audiences?which needs, exactly?
helpful
or not?

if content is king
then context is the kingdom

incorrect assumptions damage experiences
what Target assumed
small, stuffy ofﬁce spaceproblem:
purchase a small fansolution:
shop for informationstrategy:

helpfulness offered helpfulness offered
helpfulness offered
return?
I’ll try this!
neither one!
who said anything
about a return?
I guess I have
no other choice
where is the 
content I need?

let me tell
you a story

meet Carla
documentation manager
Carla thinks that improving the quality of the
content her team produces should improve 
the customer experience and in turn lead to a
reduction in customer complaints
multinational medical devices ﬁrm
competitors encroaching
customer complaints rising
conﬁgurable products

traditional technical documentation
approaches are preventing her team from
creating content of value that meets the
needs of both her company and its
prospective and existing customers
Carla realizes that…

Carla has noticed
that the support
team spends
considerable time
explaining to
customers how
their products work
Carla works with others
to discover the problem
meets with the support team

she learns that both prospective and existing
customers complain that the content provided
by her team is confusing and frustrating to use
by collaborating with others

Carla’s research uncovers
an unexpected challenge
her team has an
problem
explanation
efﬁciency
over understanding
they’ve focused on

an explanation framework that will help her
team focus on creating understanding,  
instead of just the efﬁcient publishing of facts
understanding
over efﬁciency
fortunately, 
Carla discovered

Carla discovered that an explanation framework
could be used to help her team explain ideas in
the most helpful ways possible

the explanation scale
overcome the curse of knowledge using

reach of current explanations
more understandingless understanding
potential market
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
leaderspractitionersearly adopters
goal: move to right
the curse of
knowledge

the curse of knowledge cripples
your ability to make accurate
assumptions the curse of
knowledge
humans favor
plausibility
over accuracy
we need the appearance of truth to see
something as credible or believable

the curse of knowledge prevents
us from understanding how our
language sounds to those outside
our organizations
the curse of
knowledge
explanations fail when
we are unable to translate the language of our work
to the language of a potentially underinformed audience

reach of current explanations
more understandingless understanding
potential market
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
leaderspractitionersearly adopters
goal: move to right
everything starts with why how becomes important
explanations
stories
case studies
use cases
processes
case studiesexplanations
procedures
best practices

Create content that makes it easy for
others who “get it” to quickly and
effectively explain it to others
goal
needs
• standardized
product descriptions
terminology
definitions
tactics
• audience needs analysis
• content inventory
• content model creation
• assumption testing
• incorporating lessons learned

What Does it Mean to Be Helpful? with Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler

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